AN ANTHOLOGY OF
MOROCCAN NEW SHORT STORY, VOLUME 3
Blue
Temptation
-Short
Story-
Written by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani
“Everybody,
my son, has got a fine thread inside relating him to the little child he was:
with all his innocence, happiness, lightness and wonderful riot… generating
questions and welcoming life.
However, the great
battle, dear son, will always remain centralized on the honour of grasping that
thread. If you let that fibre fall in
other people's hands, you will spend your whole life moving according to their
will, dancing to their desire, cooling down to their order and weeping to their
consolation…
At that time, my
son, you should know that you have become a mere puppet, a real doll with no
force left and no will to act on its own.
However, grasping
the thread will still be far out of your reach unless you fall on the second
key, the key of Dream: your guide to your deeper world and your friend who will
never care for your trouble when Truth is the target, leading you to the
mirror, showing you your real face with your real name in your real
environment…
So, welcome, dear
son, into the world of Dream: the world of Reality!”
An
extract from “The Three Keys: Freedom, Dream & Love”,
A short
story in “The Season of Migration to Anywhere”,
(A
Collection of Short Stories Published in Arabic by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani in
2006)
Mohamed Saïd Raïhani
Translator & short-story writer
Author Of:
"The Singularity Will"
(A Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001,
"Waiting For the Morning
" (Short stories) 2003,
"Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde"
(Short stories) 2005,
"The Season Of Migration to Anywhere"
(Short stories) 2006
In Print:
"Beyond Writing & Reading"
(testimonies)
"Kais & Juliet"
(An E-Love Novel).
He crept in his wheelchair on
the building rooftop towards the little child watching the flocks of birds
sliding smoothly in the blue sky. He tapped, with his cold palm, on the little warm
fore-arm and whispered:
-You remind me a great deal of
your late brother, Abbass..
The child sighed and asked:
-Was he fond of birds, too?
-Not only fond
of birds, he was simply mad about them…
The disabled old man remained quiet
for a little while and added:
-He used to spend most of his
time in the same place where you are standing right now, all alone, watching
the blue sky and the dancing birds as they fly higher and higher..
As he noticed the little
child’s interest, he carried on:
“He was maniacally fond of
birds. I remember that He asked me, once, about birds’ means of communication
and I said that they communicate by singing out their needs and desires. Oh,
how- he- lo- ved- the- i-dea ! he shouted :
-How wonderful, daddy, it is
to sing out your words instead of saying them plainly!
Then, with more excitement, he
asked:
-What about food,
daddy?!
I answered him that birds do
not have food problems : they have their nourishment at anytime and from any
field in the world because the world turns smaller when you fly, and quite at
hand. That is the reason why birds seem to enjoy a high degree of self-esteem,
refusing ready-made nests, building their haunts with their own beaks. Some of
them will rise their pride roof the highest possible refusing to live outside
the beautiful seasons of the year, migrating from north of the globe to south
of it, in search of and good food a warm
sun.
Once, Abbass
surprised me:
-Can
I fly , daddy ?
I denied because our ancestors
had spoilt on us the chance of flying from the very beginning of our existence
on Mother Earth. But he would protest energetically:
-What have to do with my
ancestors, daddy? I am asking about myself ...
And I had to rationalize the
situation:
Our ancestors had to try
flying earlier in time so that they might have acquired wings and transmitted
us their ability to fly. But they did not. That is why we are now here on the
ground, wingless.
Yet, Abbass would
always find solutions to match his rising enthusiasm:
- I’ll put feathers on my arms
and I’ll fly away .
I answered that wings cannot
be worn .Wings , like facial features, are inherited.
-I won’t stay
nailed here. I want to fly.
-You won’t
.
-I will.
I had tried, before him, what he was brooding
over. At his age, I myself had tried flying from the edge of this very rooftop,
indifferent to the crowd of neighbours down
the street, below me, spreading sheets from their corners and imploring
me not to commit suicide:
-Don’t kill yourself! you’ll incur God’s wrath on you...
-I’m not going to kill myself
, I’ m going to fly away...
But I threw myself from where
you are standing now , and instead of flying , I fell so heavily that the
sheets stretched for me were torn and I collided with the solidity of the
ground and had my legs broken. The result is this: I do not fly, I creep ... "wysiwyg",
my son:"what you see in me is what you will surely get"…
Yet, Abbass, you late brother,
grew fonder of birds’ lives and offspring and songs until I found myself once
crawling in my wheelchair to look deep down the street , below the building,
where my neighbours crowded to bandage split skull of your late brother who
attempted to fly, imprudently ”…
The disabled father withdrew
his cold hand off the child’s fore-arm in order to outline the conclusion from
this fable. Yet , the little child preceded him, with his face always focused
on the far-away horizon:
-Don’t be afraid, daddy. I’ll
follow neither your way nor Abbass’s...
Then, firmly :
-I will fly, daddy,
and I will succeed in my try.
**********
*The writer, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan
translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd 1968
in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will" (A Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001, "Waiting For the Morning" (Short stories) 2003,"Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde" (Short stories) 2005, "The Season Of Migration to Anywhere" (Short stories) 2006, "The Three Keys: Freedom, Dream & Love" (An anthology of Moroccan New Short Story in Three
Volumes) 2006-2007-2008, "The History of Manipulating Professional Contests in
Morocco" (Syndical manifestos in Two Volumes) 2009-2011, "Death of the Author" 2010…
He is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading» (testimonies), "Kais & Juliet" ( Novel) and ""When Photo
Talks" (Photo-Autobiography).
* "Blue Temtation" is the second narrative
text in the "The
Anthology Of Freedom", An Anthology of Moroccan New
Short Story, Volume 2, directed
by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.
***********
This Short Story Is Re-published On the
Following Links:
AFNAN |
PEARL TREE |
WIKIPEDIA |
|
ALADABIA |
|
**********
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